Parents get an education in using WeChat
Print Edition
THE social networking site WeChat is very popular among Shanghai residents — so popular that it sometimes becomes obtrusive.
Joyce Wu, a local journalist, said it became an annoying distraction after her son began school this autumn. She now finds herself a member of at least four WeChat groups related to her son’s education. One involves parents from her son’s former kindergarten class, two relate to first graders at the school, and the fourth is an official communications link involving classroom teachers and parents.
“I receive hundreds of messages every day in each group,” Wu said, “You can imagine how distracting it is. I have to spend much more time on my phone to read them all. The parents’ site discusses everything from preparation for each school day to personal feelings about raising children.”
In a sense, the cyber talk can be helpful. Parents on one site listed all the school supplies the children needed, which reduced the time Wu had to spend shopping for them.
“Some parents also said each family should buy a color printer,” Wu said. “Although local education authorities have banned schools from assigning written homework for first and second graders in a bid to reduce stress on them, the parents said many creative assignments would require us to print color pictures and words at home.”
Chen Zhe, mother of another first grader, said the parents’ WeChat group improves communications and connections among children at the school.
“We can organize activities outside of school to promote friendship among our sons and daughters,” she said. “They are not only classmates, but also friends.”
Wu is less enthusiastic, but still scrolls through the messages every day for fear of missing something important.
“Not every message I open is useful to me,” she said. “For example, the parents of girl students were talking about what kind of stockings their daughters should wear to ward off mosquitoes.”
Close parent-teacher relations have long been considered a backbone of a good education system. But can there be too much of a good thing?
For some parents, yes. It’s stressful to read the boasts of other parents about how much pre-school training their children had.
“They make me feel that every other student has already learned what is supposed to be taught in primary school,” said one mother. “It makes me really anxious.”
Some educators, too, are concerned about the influence of WeChat.
Mao Jianqiong, principal of the Shanghai Primary School in the Xuhui District, told Shanghai Daily that all head teachers of first grade classes were asked to establish official WeChat groups with parent, and parents were required to use the real names of their children when posting messages.
Previously, WeChat groups were usually established by parents, who would then invite teachers into their organizations.
“In the past, some parents in the groups were making all sorts of outrageous claims said giving out misleading information,” Mao said.
Some parents went so far as to ask others in their groups to recommend supplementary reading for the children, and suggestions poured forth. The Shanghai Education Commission bans schools from recommending supplementary books for young students.
“Other parents misunderstood and thought that our teachers were recommending supplementary reading,” Mao said. “They reported this to the education commission, and the commission initiated an inspection of our school.”
WeChat can also nurture parent pressure groups, Mao said.
“One parent was dissatisfied with one of our teachers and posted complaints on the parent-teacher message group,” she said. “The parent succeeded in galvanizing opposition to the teacher, and the group demanded we change the teacher for that class of their children.”
Mao said such a matter should have been handled between the parent and the school. When a whole group of parents is suddenly involved, often without adequate knowledge of a situation, it is harder to resolve a problem, she added.
Still, Mao said she sees positive signs in communications via WeChat.
“Teachers used to print notes to parents for the children to take home with them,” she said. “With WeChat, we have only to post a message in the parents’ group and all parents see it. That also makes it easier for us to receive feedback from parents.”
Zhou Nianli, a professor specializing in educational psychology at East China Normal University, said WeChat provides an efficient communications channel for parents, students and faculty.
“Fundamentally, parent-teacher conflicts are not caused by WeChat but rather expressed by it,” she concluded.
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